


Golden Boy

by momothesweet



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, M/M, Poetry, in which jean is a writer/poet and armin is an integral part of his dreams, jean has a cat named after a poet, poetry au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2155494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momothesweet/pseuds/momothesweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean keeps having strange dreams involving a field, and a boy running through it. Blonde hair, blue eyes...and whenever Jean tries to call for him in his dreams, he wakes up.</p>
<p>Who is he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Golden Boy

_Can you love me, syllabary,_   
_and give me a meaningful kiss?_

_Is a dictionary a sepulchre_   
_or a sealed honeycomb?_

_In which window did I remain_   
_watching buried time?_

_Or is what I see afar_   
_what I have not yet lived?_

\- Pablo Neruda

* * *

 

Jean looks outside, the rain slapping on his windowsill. The rest of the town is soaking, people down below running to find shelter, struggling to open their umbrellas, or using the lifestyles section of today’s paper to shield them (he curls his lip when he sees these people). Cars drive by, wipers at full speed, probably making their way home to get out of the weather. Ahead of the buildings and complexes is just a stretch of dark clouds going on for what looks like forever. It’s Sunday, and a very slow, rainy one at that.

He looks back at his notebook, the page blank as his current thoughts. He sighs, and takes another sip of his tea. Rainer, his black American Shorthair, sits across from him, green eyes glaring, as if he also knows that he cannot think of anything to write.

“If only I had a tree and a hillside,” he says him. “Just like you, Rainer.”

He’s actually referring to the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, as in the poet his cat is named after, and Jean knows that very well. He takes another proud sip of tea.

The short break is over. Jean picks up his pen, and attempts to make something out of nothing, literally.

> _How someone looks at you_
> 
> _And thinks_
> 
> _You’re poetry_

He stops, and puts down his pen. He looks back out at the window, rain still falling heavily. The weather report in today’s paper said that it’ll be like this all day. He turns back at his three-line work, and smiles. He picks his pen back up, and at the top of the page, writes RAIN in quotes.

“Perfect,” he says. He sips the last of his tea and gets out of his seat to take a nap on the couch near his writing space.

It had been the only poem he’d written all day.

 

Jean is not the most-liked writer in the community. There aren’t very many of them in Roseville, let alone poets. To get by, Jean writes articles pertaining to household remedies. His editor, Sasha, is always kind and tries to be friendly with him, but he avoids coming to the office unless he absolutely needs to, and emails his articles to her anyway. And ugh, emails. Call him old-fashioned (he’s only twenty-three living in the modern age of technology), but he definitely prefers writing on paper than using a keyboard. He once called the sound of the keyboard “cacophonic,” and he had to explain to the fellow journalist he was talking with what that meant. Later that day, he wrote a poem at home documenting his annoyance in the workplace.

He’s always been this way, though. Ever since college, so many people around him were so careless, ignorant of the world and the possibility of something beyond the physical present. Poetry can do that. It can explain these things is such a beautiful manner. If only someone could understand. If only one person could share this idea of balance between the now and the infinite.

Jean takes off his glasses and sets them on the coffee table, decorated with a copy of The Book of Questions and The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, along with a vanilla-scented candle and a thin vase with a single, blooming red rose. A few feet away, he can still see Rainer in the same spot, also falling asleep. Jean arches his back slightly and yawns, slowly drifting off to some place warmer, some place more enlightening, a field…

 

He was blonde.

Or maybe it was a woman in his dream. No, it was definitely a boy. A blonde one.

Jean sits up on his couch and looks at his watch. He had been asleep all day. Out the window, he sees that the rain has stopped, but it is still cloudy and gray.

Rainer had switched sleeping spots while Jean was asleep. He’s awake, sitting at Jean’s feet, tail curling and floating across the drab carpet.

“Was the princess blonde, Rainer?” he asks his cat.

Rainer stared back at him. He doesn’t meow.

Jean shakes his head. “Never mind.”

He returns to his writing spot, the small table with a notebook, pen, and empty tea cup. He sees the poem he wrote earlier that day. He’s still satisfied with it.

He picks up his pen once more, and begins to write.

> _Golden as the sun warming my skin_
> 
> _You enter my dreams, unannounced_
> 
> _Lock-picking my door and coming in_
> 
> _Without wiping your feet_
> 
> _And yet_
> 
> _You don’t care_
> 
> _You run freely_
> 
> _Meeting me in the field Rumi talked of_
> 
> _My throat is stuck_
> 
> _Incomprehensible_
> 
> _I hold my hand out_
> 
> _Not a syllable can escape me_
> 
> _Who are you_
> 
> _Golden boy_

He ends the poem there, and titles it the last line of the last stanza. He looks out the window, Roseville still cloudy and people still moving quickly. There are puddles throughout the streets.

He sighs again, and looks at Rainer, who followed him over to the table, back in his spot. “So this is why they’re called ‘lazy Sundays.”

> _Golden boy_
> 
> _Once again invading what isn’t yours_
> 
> _Smiling_
> 
> _As if something is up your sleeve_
> 
> _Still running endlessly_
> 
> _In fields of green_
> 
> _Skies as blue as your eyes_
> 
> _How cliche_
> 
> _I stand in the middle of it all_
> 
> _Watching_
> 
> _Still unable to speak_
> 
> _I don’t know what you’re smiling for_
> 
> _You keep me up at night_
> 
> _Shooting me from temporary unconsciousness_
> 
> _Startling Rilke and his Angels_
> 
> _Attempting something_
> 
> _Something precious, perhaps_
> 
> _I do not know_
> 
> _What are you_
> 
> _Golden boy_

Jean drops his pen, more frustrated now. It had been the third night the blonde boy showed up in his dreams. He grumbles as he drinks his tea through a green straw. It is his lunch break, and the baristas are rushing all these orders for businessmen and nurses and teachers and all the other jobs that keep life going. His tea is too sweet, but he says nothing.

He flips the page of his notebook, and scratches his head with the back of his pen before scratching the other end on the paper.

> _Life_
> 
> _So rushed_
> 
> _Flashing to the future_
> 
> _Like it’s this second_
> 
> _No wait_
> 
> _I’m already in the past_

He scribbles out the last two lines, and then the rest of the “poem.” All of his thoughts are focused on the boy in his dreams. That, and the office meeting he has to attend after the break.

He slaps his notebook closed and leaves, tossing the half-drunk tea in the trash can outside.

 

He wakes up again. It’s 4am.

Rainer is already awake, waiting for Jean to yell something at him or to move so he can get off his bed.

Jean turns to turn on his lamp. He pulls out a small notebook filled with other bits and verses from nighttime idea bursts and a pen from the drawer of his nightstand. He leaves his phone on the charger. He would have to be dead before someone made him write poetry on an app.

> _Sun barely rising_
> 
> _You’ve already leaped_
> 
> _From the horizon_
> 
> _Waking me from what should be_
> 
> _Several hours of peace_

He groans, and throws the notebook and pen next to the lamp. He turns off the light and throws himself back on his pillow.

“Get out of my head,” he mumbles as his eyelids sink, “golden boy…”

 

The dream is different this time.

Sunday again. He downs his second cup of tea. The weather outside is clearer than three weeks ago with the rain. But he doesn’t notice.

It doesn’t even look like a poem as he continues to write.

> _We live together_
> 
> _In this piece of shit apartment_
> 
> _I’m still writing shitty poetry_
> 
> _I hear you_
> 
> _In the kitchen_
> 
> _Cutting the stem of the red rose_
> 
> _Singing one of my shitty verses_
> 
> _“As I close my eyes_
> 
> _Nothing turns into_
> 
> _A beauty ahead of the present”_
> 
> _I think it’s terrible_
> 
> _And you think it’s poetry_
> 
> _I don’t say it_
> 
> _But you’re wrong_
> 
> _The sound of your voice_
> 
> _Slinking through my ears_
> 
> _Sending the pulses through my spine_
> 
> _Is more poetry_
> 
> _Than I could ever ask for_

Jean throws his pen down, sending Rainer to the floor and meowing. “Sorry,” Jean says. He runs his fingers through his hair and scrunches it. “I cannot be attached to someone I’ve never met. Cannot.”

Rainer meows.

“Someone,” Jean whispers to himself, “someone I’ve clearly made up. It can’t be.”

 

He crosses out “red roses.” He writes the words again. And crosses them out again. And writes the words again.\

> _Why has the field_
> 
> _Become red roses_
> 
> _I am afraid_
> 
> _I will be cut_
> 
> _By the thorns_
> 
> _Of you._

Rainer is oblivious to Jean’s groans. He leans back from his chair, wrists applying pressure on his achy forehead. “I need more tea.”

 

> _What Angels are out there_
> 
> _Without wings_
> 
> _But capable_
> 
> _Of flying_

He pauses, and crosses out the last line. Not to change the words, but to change the spacing.

> _What Angels are out there_
> 
> _Without wings_
> 
> _But capable_
> 
> _Of flying_
> 
> _Nowhere_
> 
> _In particular_
> 
> _And at_
> 
> _The           same                 time_
> 
> _Every_
> 
> _where_

Rainer stands over the notebook, also eyeing the strange spacing of the poem.

“Stop it,” Jean says. “I’m trying something new.”

It had been the first time in three and a half weeks that he had written something other than the golden boy.

 

> _Your breath slows down_
> 
> _Time_
> 
> _Next to    me_
> 
> _And I am finally_
> 
> _Asleep_

It was another different dream, without the field.

He looks at the poem, not really moved by it, and leaves for the movie theater.

 

“It wasn’t that great,” Connie says. “The effects tried overshadow the talent of the actors. It’s a shame movies these days try to do that.”

“Yeah,” Jean agrees, “not to mention the poor dialogue and the borderline sexist characterization of the women in the story.”

“Thank you!” Connie looks so surprised that someone actually agrees with him. “All these positive reviews about this movie? Bullshit.”

Jean nods. They’re in the coffee shop near the office, and he’s drinking some special, smoothie-like concoction with green tea that Connie recommended. To his surprise, it’s pretty tasty.  

“Hey, I’m glad you came to the movie with me,” Connie says after a brief moment of silence. “We don’t see you much in the office!”

Jean shrugs. “Guess I’m not that friendly.”

Connie smiles and gives him a friendly slap on the arm. “Sure you are. You just need to try a little more.”

Jean thinks about how he left his notebook at home for this. Sasha kept texting him all week to go with Connie because he always needed someone to talk to about the movie for his review, and she continuously said that she couldn’t make it and all of the other writers were busy. The day before, after another night of dreaming of the golden boy, he reluctantly agreed. And here he is, admittedly having fun with his co-worker.

“I guess I do need to try a little more,” Jean says. He takes another chug of his drink.

 

The office was bustling, keyboards clacking and chatter all around.

And for some reason, Jean isn’t bothered as much by it.

The power is out at his apartment complex, so he had no choice but to sit in the newsroom, listening to other writers trying to articulate their words so the masses can understand the changing economy of Roseville according to the mayor. Someone behind him is repeating the same sentence over, and over, and over. All he’s waiting for is the meeting, and he could go home, hopefully to functional lights.

Sasha walks up to his desk, joyful as always, but more joyful in particular for a few reasons, one being that she’s seeing him more often in the office, talking with the writers and being more social.

“Nice to see you here again, Kirschstein.”

He’s about to huff, but instead he returns the greeting with “I don’t have power at my apartment.”

She flashes her teeth in her grin. “I mean, you could have gone to the coffee shop and waited there...but I’m glad you’re here! You’ll have no problem turning anything in to me on time, anyway. Keep it up!”

She throws a thumbs up at him, and skips away. He looks back at the computer, staring at his piece on vinegar and baking soda to help clogged drains. Things people can look up by themselves. She was right. He could have people-watched again in the coffee shop, drink too-sweet tea and write more poetry, but no. The first place that came to mind was here.

Strange.

He turns away from the computer screen to his bag, and pulls out his notebook, now filled with poems inspired by that golden boy. The last one he had written about him was just a couple of days ago. There were some other recent verses in between about roses and his cat and life’s meaning. He clicks his pen.

> _Stuck_

He taps his pen on the paper. He looks around. Sasha is eating potato chips as she’s pointing to another writer’s computer screen. He looks down again.

> _Stuck_
> 
> _s t u c k_

He tilts his head up to the ceiling, and back to the poetry.

> _Without       you_
> 
> _Is it only_
> 
> _when I close my eyes_
> 
> _That I_
> 
> _See_
> 
> _You_
> 
> _Not one soul_
> 
> _here_
> 
> _With golden hair_
> 
> _no sunshine_
> 
> _in these_
> 
> _four                   walls_
> 
> _Sky_
> 
> _grey_
> 
> _Where are you_
> 
> _Golden boy_

“Whatcha got there?”

Jean quickly shuts his notebook and spins around to find Sasha leaning forward, eyes bulging with curiosity.

“Nothing,” he says, adjusting his glasses. “Nothing important.”

“Good. We’re having a meeting in five minutes. I’m really excited! You should be, too.”

He attempts to be excited by awkwardly smiling and returning the thumbs up she gave him earlier. “I’ll be there.”

Sasha walks over to the desk behind him to tell him the same news. He spins his chair back to his notebook, but he doesn’t open it. It’s been well over a month and a half, and it’s been the same dream, with a few variations. A boy, about his age, with blonde hair and blue eyes, running freely in a field. And when Jean tries to approach him to say something, he wakes up…

The different dreams with the same person were Jean’s favorites. The domestic one where he sings Jean’s poetry, another where the field is full of roses instead of grass, a dream-within-a-dream-like one where Jean wakes up next to him, sleeping...

He shoves the notebook back in his bag and gets up to go to the board room. He’s not sure what this meeting is about. He’s never sure of Sasha’s definition of “excited.” It can either be a huge invitation to a party with political figures in town or the announcement of someone’s pregnancy. Who knows.

People are piling in the small area, the seats already taken. Jean stands behind two fairly tall writers, the ones he sees every morning stuffing themselves with donuts and coffee. Sasha is at the head of the table, standing. It looks as if someone is standing behind her, but he can’t see. She always manages to do something with the element of surprise. That’s just her style.

“Okay everyone, I have an announcement!” Sasha exclaims. “Shhh!”

The room settles down. Jean folds his arms.

“I’m very pleased to announce that we have a new writer on our team! He’ll be covering our travel section and provide Roseville with all the descriptions of the world outside of it!”

She jumps out of the way to reveal the person standing behind her, and Jean’s eyes widen immediately. He pushes between the two guys to get a closer look across the room.

His stomach drops to his pelvis.

His heart stops beating.

His lungs are caught by the imaginary hands that jump between fate and chance.

Blonde hair.

Blue eyes.

A smile on his face. Nervous, but nevertheless a smile.

And for the first time, in the very physical, very real present, Jean hears the golden boy speak.

“Hello, everyone. My name is Armin. I look forward to working with you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished a summer class involving reading lots of poetry...along with an AU I talked about with someone, this was the result x_x  
> I highly recommend the poets and books mentioned in this fic. They definitely allowed me to think more about the world and our part in it. Fair warning - Rilke's poetry is difficult to interpret. (But I really do want to understand him!)
> 
> Anyhow. Thanks for reading! :D


End file.
